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PRIZE ESSAY 



Jmproucment of Common 0cl)ools 



IN 



CONNECTICUT.^ 



x\}t (£ 5 a ij . 



THE 



NECESSITY AND MEANS 



IMPROVING THE COMMON SCHOOLS 



CONNECTICUT. 



?^^ri^ 



BY REV. NOAH PORTER, JR. 



HARTFORD : 

PRESS OP CASE, TIFFANY AND BURNHAM. 

Pearl street, comer of Trumbull. 

1846. 



' f 



.TN 



A premium of One Hundred Dollars, which the undersigned have been author- 
ized to offer, will be paid for the best Practical Essay, adapted to general circulation, 
presenting the most simple and efficient plan for improving the Public Schools in 
Connecticut, and for adding to the Public Schools in Ciiie5 a department for in- 
struction in the higher branches of education. 

Competent judges will be selected to decide on the merits of the Essays, which 
shall be transmitted to the undersigned on or before the 20th of April next. 

The names of the authors to be sent in sealed envelopes, of which that one 
only will be opened which accompanies the Prize Essay. 

Thomas Day, 
Thomas H. Gaulladet. 
William D. Ely. 
Hartford, March 2, 1846. 

In consequence of the above notice, twenty-seven Essays were 
received, and submitted to the Rev. George Burgess, Rector of 
Christ's Church, and Mr. N. L. Gallup, Principal of the Center 
District School, in this city, who awarded the premium to the 
Essay written by the Rev. Noah Porter, Jr. 

Thomas Day, 
Thomas H. Gallaudkt, 
William D. Ely. 
Hartford, May2\, 1846. 



PRIZE ESSAY 



ON THE NECESSITY AND MEANS OF IMPROVING THE COMMON SCHOOLS 
OF CONNECTICUT. 



There was a time when the Common Schools of Connecticut 
were esteemed the best in the world, and when Connecticut, on 
account of her system of public education, was the brightest spot in 
all Christendom. Connecticut gave to the world the first example of a 
government providing a munificent fund for the education of every child 
within its limits, and of securing the benefits of this provision equally 
and forever to the humblest as well as to the highest, to the poorest 
as well as to the richest. She connected with this fund a system of 
general and minute supervision, good for its time, to preserve the fund 
from abuse and misapplication, and to give thoroughness and efficiency 
to its actual workings. It was a system suited to the state of society 
then existing — to the staid and sober habits of the people. It answered 
in a good measure, its design. It made teachers and parents both 
feel their responsibility. 

The results of this school system, were great and good. Every 
hamlet in Connecticut of no more than twenty houses, whether spread 
out upon the plain, or crowded into the valley, whether sprinkled 
along the sloping hill-side, or wedged in among the brown rocks of 
some wild ravine, could show its district school-house, which was 
regularly opened for many months in the year. There was hardly to 
be known the son or daughter of Connecticut, who could not read and 
write. It was the rarest of all things to see one who had not received 
a good elementary education. 

This was reported to the honor of Connecticut throughout the 
Christian world. The lover of his race, who had been rewarded for 
his zeal for the elevation of his countrymen, by a life-lease in a 
Prussian or Austrian dungeon, saw his prison wall all light about 
him when he thought of the one government in the world that had 
provided efficiently for the education of the humblest child, and 
gathered hope for the time, when his government and all governments 
should do the same. The surly and prejudiced Englishman, when 
he had said all the hard things that he could think of about America 
and the Yankees, could always be floored by one argument, and that 
was the Connecticut School Fund contrasted with the national debt 
of Great Britain. In our own Union, the other states were reproved 



for their negligence, and spurred on to their duty by the example of 
what Connecticut had been the first to perform. The emigrant 
mother in Vermont or Western New York, as she looked around upon 
her untauo^ht boys and girls, sighed for the schools of Connecticut and 
was ready to exchange the rich fields that were beginning to look so 
luxuriant about her, for the most rocky farm within the limits of a 
Connecticut school district. 

But within the last twenty years a change in all these respects has 
taken place. Connecticut no longer holds the same high position 
which she once did. Austria and Prussia have provided their subjects 
with an efficient and successful Common School system. Other 
governments in Europe are slowly awaking to their duty and interest 
in respect to the same high matter. Despotism even is striving to 
make peace with its wronged and outraged subjects, by giving, in 
return for the civil rights which it withholds, the substantial blessings 
of universal education. Many of the states of our own Union are 
giving themselves to this cause with a zeal and energy which show 
them determined to make amends for past neglect and torpor. In 
Massachusetts, Ohio, New York, Georgia, Rhode Island, and many 
other states, vigorous and successful efforts are made. School funds 
are accumulated ; taxes are readily imposed and cheerfully paid ; 
Boards of Education are instituted ; periodicals are circulated ; public 
lectures are given ; Normal Schools for the instruction of teachers are 
provided ; teachers' conventions and Institutes are attended with zeal 
and profit. These, and other signs, show beyond question, that there 
is a strong movement in the public mind ; that the people are being 
aroused. In some states and parts of states this interest is well-nigh 
enthusiastic. 

But Connecticut ! where is Connecticut the mean while ? Where 
is she, who was once the star of hope and guidance to the world ? 
She was the first to enter the lists, and was the foremost in the race. 
Is she foremost now ? Whatever may be the truth of the case, it is 
certain, that she is not thought to be in the other states. It is the 
general opinion, out of Connecticitt^ that she is doing little or nothing ; 
and, whereas, a few years since, her name was mentioned in connec- 
tion with Common Schools, with honor, only ; it is now, in this con- 
nection, coupled with expressions of doubt and regret, and that by wise 
and sober men. Her large State endowment is described as having 
put her efl'ectually asleep, as having sent her to " Sleepy Hollow," 
from the influence of which, when she is aroused for a moment, it is 
to talk of her noble School Fund and James Hillhouse, just as Rip 
Van Winkle did of his neighbors who had been dead forty years. 
The School Fund is quoted every where nut of Connecticut, — we ven- 
ture to say it is quoted in every other state in the Union, as a warning 
and example to deter them from giving the proceeds of their own 
funds, except only on the condition, that those who receive shall 
themselves, raise as much as they take, and report annually as to the 
results. Those who go from other states into Connecticut, can 
hardly credit the testimony of their own senses when they are forced 



to believe the apathy that prevails. Every newspaper and lecturer 
out of Connecticut, high and low, ignorant and knowing, sneers at 
the Connecticut School Fund, and the present condition of the Con- 
necticut schools. 

Are the people of Connecticut aware that this is the case ? Do 
they know what the people of other states think and say of them ? 
Do they believe that what is thought and said is true and deserved ? 
We can hardly believe that they are generally aware of the bad repute 
into which their schools have fallen. Or if they are informed in 
respect to it, they do not believe that they merit so bad a name. The 
majority are too well contented to leave their schools as they are. 
They persuade themselves that their school system works as well as 
any public school system can be expected to work ; that notwith- 
standing all that may be said out of the state against the schools of 
Connecticut, these schools are better than those of any state in the 
Union. They are opposed to any agitation of the subject. They will 
give their hearts to no strong and united effort to improve their schools. 
On the other hand, those who know that our schools are inferior to those of 
some of the other states, and who see clearly, in the prevailing apathy, 
the certain signs of a still greater degeneracy, are almost discouraged 
to hope for any great and permanent improvement. Neither of these 
classes are wholly in the wrong, nor wholly in the right. It is not 
true, that the schools of Connecticut are as good as those of certain 
other states. It is not true, that our public school system is as good, 
or is managed as efficiently as the systems of many other states. 
There is not only danger, but a certain prospect, that if things remain 
as they are, the schools of Connecticut will degenerate still more, 
and Connecticut will be dishonored more and more, in the comparison 
with her sister republics. It is not true, indeed, that all the hard 
and contemptuous things that have been said about our schools and 
our school fund are just and deserved, but the Aicts can be brought 
to prove that there is too much ground for them, and that the public 
apathy on this subject is inexcusable and fraught with evil. 

But we would not despair. Connecticut though slow to move, 
moves sure and strong when she is aroused. She is cautious and 
prudent, but when she sees the reasons for a change she will change 
in earnest. We have too much love for our native state to be willing 
to despair. We believe that she is still the soundest at heart of any 
state in the Union, and that on this subject, she will show herself 
worthy of her ancient reputation. In the hope of contributing to this 
end, the following remarks are offered in respect to the present con- 
dition of the Public Schools of Connecticut, and the remedy which 
may be employed with the hope of success. 

What then is the condition of the Common Schools of Connecticut? 
Facts are stubborn things. We present the following, in which the 
contrast is strikingly exhibited : 

First, as to appropriations for school purposes. Money is the 
sinews of education as of war. The willingness to appropriate money 
shows zeal for any cause, Connecticut, in 1795, set apart for school 



purposes a large and increasing fund for the support of schools, which 
now annoiints to $2,070,000, and divides $1-40 for every scholar be- 
tween the age of 4 and 1 6. Besides this, there are the town deposit-fund 
and local funds. Instead of annexhig to the reception of their annual 
dividend the condition of raising a specified sum, the annual taxation 
was gradually diminished, till in 1822 it ceased altogether. In 1845, it 
is not known that a single town or school society in the state, raised a 
tax for school purposes by voluntary taxation. In a few of the large city 
districts, a small property-tax is collected, and applied to the wages of 
teachers, but not amounting in the whole state to $9,000, or 3 cents to 
each inhabitant, or 10 cents, to each child between the ages of 4 and 16. 

Massachusetts and New York, as the capital and dividend of 
their school funds haA^e increased, have, at the same time, increased 
the sums to be raised as a condiiion of receiving the dividend of their 
funds. From 1835 to 1845, the capital of the Massachusetts Fund was 
increased from $500,000 to $800,000. During the same period the 
amount annually raised in towns by tax, for the wages of teachers, 
has advanced from $325,320 to near $600,000. The statute of 1839 
requires that $1'25, for every child between the ages of 4 and 16, 
should be raised and actually expended for the purposes of instruction 
in each town, whereas, more than $300 for every child of the above 
age was actually raised by tax in 1845 in 53 towns, more than 
$2-00 in 190 towns, and $2-99 is the average through the state. 
$2-99 is the average in Massachusetts and 10 cts. in Connecticut. 
It is instructive to look over the list of towns as arranged in the 
school returns of Massachusetts for 1846. The town standing 
first is a new town just out of Boston, which raises $7"64. The 
town numbered 8 is an unpretending agricultural town in Worcester 
county, which raises $482. The town numbered 30, a small town, 
raises $3'77. The town numbered 280 raises by tax $1-43 per 
scholar, which is 3 cts. more than every scholar in Connecticut 
receives from the School Fund. 

In New York, when the legislature in 1838, virtually increased 
the capital of the School Fund from $2,000,000 to near $6,000,000, 
the obligation on the part of the towns, to raise an amount equal to 
that distributed was not removed. Thus, while the appropriation by 
the state was increased from $100,000 in 1835, to $275,000 in 1845, 
the amount required to be raised by tax in the towns increased in the 
same proportion, viz., from $100,000 to $275,000, and the amount 
voluntarily raised by the towns and districts in 1845, more than 
quadrupled the amount raised in the same way in 1835. 

In Rhode Island, the state ap[)ropriation has increased from 
$10,000 in 1829 to $25,000 in 1845, while the towns in 1829 re- 
ceived the state appropriation unconditionally, but are now required 
to raise a third as much as they receive. 

In .Maine, 40 cts. must be raised lor every inhabitant, which is per- 
haps more than is required in any other of the New England stales. 

Second, as to the supervision of schools. The first effort, to set apart 
a class of officers for the special dntv of visiting schools and ex- 



amining teachers, was made by Connecticut in the school law of 
1798, and there Connecticut has left the matter, except that the 
towns may now make returns to the commissioner ol' the School Fund, 
who is also superintendent of the schools. la the mean time other 
states have taken the suggestion from Connecticut and improved upon 
it. Massachusetts has a state Board of Education, with one individual 
devoting his whole time to collecting facts and diffusing infor- 
mation I'or the improvement of schools. New York has not only a 
state superintendent, but a school officer for each county, and a super- 
intendent for each town. $28,000 was paid in 1844 as salaries to 
the county superintendents. Vermont and Rhode Island have recently 
adopted the system of state, county, and town superintendents. 

Third, as to the education and improvement of teachers. The 
first elaborate effort to call public attention in this country to the 
importance of Normal schools or teachers' seminaries, was made by 
Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, in a series of essays published in Hartford, in 
1825. Massachusetts put this idea into actual being. By the off'er 
of $10,000 from Hon. Edmund Dwight, of Boston, the legislature 
unanimously appropriated an equal amount for the annual expense of 
three Normal schools for three years, and at the close of the third 
year, provision was made for the erection of buildings and the per- 
manent support of these schools. In New York, a State Normal 
School has been established in Albany, and $10,000 annually appro- 
priated for this object. 

The first assembly of teachers, like those now known as Teachers' 
Institutes, ever held in this country, was held at Hartford in 1839, and 
it is believed to have been the last but one held in Connecticut. This 
important agency has since been introduced into New York, Ohio, 
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. In New York more 
than 6,000 teachers assembled in the different counties in the autumn 
of 1845. In Massachusetts, $2,500 have been appropriated by the 
legislature for their encouragement during the current year. 

Fourth, School-houses. The first essay which is known to have 
been prepared to expose the evils of school-houses badly constructed, 
warmed, lighted, and ventilated, was read at a state Convention of the 
friends of education in Hartford, in 1830; and for nearly 9 years 
after, five school-houses only in the state are known to have been 
repaired and built in accordance with its suggestions. The same 
essay was read and published in Boston in 1831, and was followed 
by immediate attention to the subject in different parts of the state. 
In 1 838, a new impulse was given to this kind of improvement by 
Mr. Mann's Report on the subject, and from that time till 1844, the 
amount of $634,326 was expended for the construction and permanent 
repairs of school-houses. Within the past two years, one-tliird of 
the school districts of Rhode Island have repaired old school-houses 
or constructed new ones after improved plans. Since 1838, more 
than $200,000 has been expended in this way. 

Fifth, School-libraries. The first juvenile libranj perhaps in the 
world was established in Salisbury, Conn., more than half a century 



8 

since, and the originator of the school district library enterprise was 
a native of this state. This is about all that Connecticut is known to 
have done in this department. In 1838 New York appropriated a 
sum equal to about $5 for every school district, or $53,000 for the 
whole state, on condition that a like amount should be raised by the 
several towns, both sums to be spent in the purchase of books for 
school district libraries. Six years after this law passed there were 
more than one million and a half of volumes scattered through every 
neighbourhood of that great state. Massachusetts, for one year, 
appropriated the income of its school fund for this object on certain 
conditions, and at this time every school district is supplied with a 
library open to all the children and adults of the community. 

We adduce these statistics as testimony concerning the degree of 
interest which is felt in Connecticut on this subject, compared, with 
the zeal that prevails in the above named states. We discuss not 
here, the importance or the wisdom of these measures. We have 
other testimony still more direct. It comes from the people them- 
selves. Let any man study the returns of the school visitors as re- 
ported to the legislature in 1845, let any man study the reports now 
on file in the Commissioner's office for the year just closing, and 
he will receive one uniform and desponding confession in respect to 
the apathy that prevails — like an atmosphere of death. Particular 
defects are named and remedies are suggested, but the want of 
public interest is uniformly named as the worst and most disheart- 
ening evil. Then let him contrast these returns with those of many 
other states, and what a change will he notice. On the one hand is 
heard the voice of declension and despondency, on the other, the 
language of progress and hope. 

But this does not exhaust the evidence. Those who go from Con- 
necticut into other states, and from them into Connecticut, feel a 
shock in the transition. It is like going from a cellar into the sun- 
shine, or from the sunshine into a cellar. We know an intelligent 
gentleman who has seen his scores of years, who has recently re- 
moved from Rhode Island into the " land of steady habits," and can 
hardly understand or believe that the apathy which he finds, can be 
a reality. The writer has within a few years made the change the 
other way, from Connecticut to the Bay State. He too has been for- 
cibly impressed with the contrast. In one particular, this contrast is 
very striking. In Connecticut, the people have been persuaded, that 
to be taxed for the support of Common Schools, is a levy upon the 
poor, for the schools of the rich. In Massachusetts, the people know 
that all such taxes are a lawful tribute from the rich, for the benefit 
of the poor. We have seen in the latter state, in a crowded town 
meeting, a thousand hands raised as by magic, to vote the largest of 
two sums named by the school committee, a sum which was nearly 
a dollar for every individual of the entire population, men, women and 
children. The motion was made by one of the wealthiest men in the 
town, whose own children were too old to attend the public school. 
It was supported by others wealthier than he, and having no interest 



of their own in the schools. A proposition to set apart five hundred 
dollars as a fund to be distributed to the feebler districts, at the dis- 
cretion of the town committee, was moved in the same way, and car- 
ried without the show of opposition. In the same town, the year fol- 
lowing, the school tax was increased by two thousand dollars, though 
the most important district had ten days before taxed itself nearly 
nine thousand dollars for land and a building for a high school. This 
occurred in a town by no means the foremost to engage in school im- 
provements, and not even now the most conspicuous for its zeal or 
its expenditures. In Lowell, Salem, Worcester, Springfield, Rox- 
bury, and in towns of less importance, the public school-houses are 
the best buildings in the town, inviting without for their aspect of 
beauty and solidity, and within for their convenient apartments and 
their abundant apparatus. We have seen something of the working 
of this school system for years. We have observed the conscientious 
and honorable pride felt in the public schools, by those influential for 
wealth and talent, who give to these schools their influence, and send 
to them their sons and daughters. What is of far more consequence 
and interest, we have freely mingled in the families of those in hum- 
bler life, and learned from the lips of parents their high sense of the 
value of these schools which cost them little or nothing, and which 
promised to give their children all the education which they desired. 
We have heard from the mother of a large family of boys, hearty re- 
grets, that her sons must be removed from the school by the depart- 
ure of the family from town. Seeing these things, we could not but 
conclude that public schools may attain high perfection, and that such 
schools are the choicest of earth's blessings. 

But this introduces the second and the most important of our in- 
quiries — " What can be done to improve the public schools of Con- 
necticut ?" It is of little use to conclude that these schools sadly need 
such improvement, if no remedy can be devised. To summon a 
counsel of ill-natured and desponding physicians, rather hurts than 
helps the patient, if all that they can do is to find fault by his bedside. 
It is with diffidence, yet with strong conviction that we make the 
following suggestions : 

The friends of Common Schools should not place their main 
reliance on legislative enactments and influence. Not that legis- 
lative action if united and hearty, is not most desirable ; not that 
a well digested reform of the school laws is not called for ; nor again 
that if it could be secured and made permanent it would not be a most 
important step towards final success. But what if such action is not 
to be hoped for 1 What shall be done 1 Shall we say that nothing can 
be done ? This has been said too long already. The common feel- 
ing has been that until the legislature should move, to an entire 
change in the school law, nothing is to be hoped for. The guilt of 
the public neglect and the excuse for the general apathy have been all 
carried to the doors of the government and left there, as if nothing 
could be done without its aid. This is a false view of the case. 
Important as legislative action may be, of itself it can accomplish lit- 



10 

tie. It must be carried home by the awakened zeal of the people. 
It is the sign and stimulant of the public mind aroused. To effect 
such action, if it shall ever be eflfected, the public feeling must call 
with a commanding voice. In the states in which so much has been 
done, in connection with a revisal of their school system, the interest 
has not so much been created by the new laws, as it has itself created 
them. The laws have been the product of the zeal of the public, 
which zeal has itself given life and efficiency to the laws. In Rhode 
Island, where, at this moment, there is going forward a most enthusi- 
astic movement for Common Schools, it is carried forward by indi- 
vidual agency and expense, seconded by school laws indeed, but 
borne forward by the people, as one of the mighty swells of their own 
ocean lifts the stranded vessel from the beach. 

The main reliance in Connecticut, as in other states, must be pla- 
ced on the waking of the public mind, by the ordinary means of 
moving this mind. The press must be enlisted ; vigorous pens must 
be set in motion ; all political parties must lend their aid ; lecturers 
must be employed ; conventions must be held ; the pulpit must speak 
out, till a conscience shall be created and aroused in respect to the 
duties of Christains towards the neglected and half heathenized pop- 
ulation in their midst. Facts — facts, on this subject can be made to 
speak, as they are uttered by zealous but fair minded men. The 
truth of the case can be demonstrated till no man shall dare to deny 
it, that Connecticut is far behind her sister states in this matter, and 
will soon be still farther in the rear. If this is evaded or denied, it can 
be proved. All this will involve expense and self-denial, and diffi- 
culties, and discouragements. But without this active agency no 
change is to be hoped for. The agency must be sustained ; the 
expense must be incurred, and the agitation must be prosecuted. 

But what specific plan shall be urged ? What shall it be proposed 
to effect ? What principles shall be aimed at, asserted and raised 
upon our banner ? In answer, we say, — Popular education is no 
longer a theory; — it has been tested and determined by experi- 
ment. The principles which a public school system must involve, 
have been settled by trial. These must enter into every plan that 
will work with success. They may be reached in different methods ; 
but they must be reached in some way or the plan will fail. What 
are these principles ? We answer : — 

First. A thorough examination and supervision of the teachers and 
the schools by competent and faithful men. Teachers of common 
schools are the servants of the public. In Connecticut, they are 
mainly supported from the public funds. They receive from the 
State, year by year, more than one hundred and fifteen thousand 
dollars. Let them be held to a real and rigid responsibility for their 
qualifications for their place, and for the fulfillment of its duties. — 
There is not a turnpike company in Connecticut which yields a 
revenue of a hundred dollars the year, for whose control and super- 
vision a commiss'oner is not appointed — whose services the company 
are required to pay. Not a Bank is leftunvisited by a commissioner 



11 

to inspect its books and supervise its proceedings. Nay, not an 
individual is allowed to practice the simple business of a measurer 
of land, before he has been examined by the County Surveyor, and 
received a license from him, for which license he must pay the fees. 
Not a physician, nor clergyman, nor lawyer, is allowed the privileges 
or emoluments of his profession, till he has been examined and 
licensed by some individual, or body of men. Why are not the 
teachers of the public schools subjected to the same necessity ? — to 
an examination which shall express the solemnity of the trust com- 
mitted to their hands, and the importance of the profession to which 
they are admitted ? Would the hardship be intolerable and exces- 
sive — would it be a hardship at all, if every man who proposes to 
teach, was first required to obtain a license from one or more com- 
missioners in his county, or senatorial district, for which he himself 
should pay ? The present system of examination does not answer 
the object which it was intended to accomplish. It is the testimo- 
ny of by far the majority of the Boards of Examiners in the state, 
that it is little more than a form, and often no better than a farce. A 
young man wishes to obtain fifty or one hundred dollars by keeping 
a winter school. He goes boldly to the committee, for he knows 
they will find it hard to refuse him permission — for the committee 
consists of the clergyman to whose parish he belongs, and who will 
be slow to think hira unqualified, as common schools go ; of the 
physician, who will not like to offend the young man's parents ; and 
of the lawyer, who is looking to political promotion. However con- 
scientious or faithful this committee may desire to be, it is hard for 
them often to know what to decide. The examination of teachers 
is not their business, and they have framed no fixed standard by 
which to judge. Their duties are thankless duties — a favor done to 
the public, rather than a trust for which they are held responsible, and 
their field is so limited that they cannot give to it earnest and devo- 
ted energy. 

Let the change proposed be introduced. Let the candidate be 
obliged to go out of his native town for his license. Let him know 
that he is to be examined in the presence of twenty or fifty other 
candidates, and by those who have no partiality for hira, arising from 
personal acquaintance ; and to be qualified to teach a winter school, 
would be thought a graver matter than it now is. The profession 
would be elevated at once. A higher grade of qualifications would be 
sought for and attained. There would be that dignity and pride at- 
tached to the calling of a teacher, which is secured by an honorable 
admission through a difficult entrance. And this need not cost the 
state a dollar. 

If to the same commissioners should be intrusted the duty of 
visiting the schools within a given district, another advantage would 
be gained. In passing from one school to another, they would have 
room for comparison, and a field for suggestions. They could meet 
the teachers of each town in friendly and profitable interviews. They 
could confer with the town committees, and visit the schools with 



12 

them ; to receive and give light in respect to the wants of each town, 
and the remedies for these defects. The friends of education, the be- 
nevolent and the public-spirited, would look to them with hope and 
confidence, and would gather around them to aid and encourage them. 
The expense for this service need not be great. We take it for 
granted, that a school visitor has as good right to be paid for his time 
and labor, as a fence viewer, or pound keeper. If the school visitors 
should relinquish their duty to them in whole or in part, and with 
it the pay which they ought to receive, and in some cases do receive, 
the additional cost of this arrangement would not be great. But 
what if, perchance, it should cost something ? It is worth something. 
It would be a reproach to the memory of his fathers, for a Connecti- 
cut man to think otherwise. It Avould be a slander on the founders 
of the School Fund, who thought two millions not too great a sum to 
set apart for common education, to say that it was not worth the while 
to pay something to make its blessings more valuable and certain. 

We make this suggestion with more confidence, when we remen> 
ber, that it was the opinion of one of the most sagacious men that 
Connecticut ever boasted, that the appointment of County Commis- 
sioners to perform the services specified, would be the crowning fea- 
ture to perfect the Connecticut Sc1k>o1 System. 

Second. Teacher's Institutes may be held throughout the State 
and that also, without delay. These are conventions for mutual 
improvement and excitement. They may be also called travelling 
Teachers* seminaries. — These have- been held in other states with 
the most striking results. The idea was indeed conceived in Con- 
necticut, years ago, and was tried on a small scale for two years in 
succession. At a place and time previously agreed upon, the teach- 
ers within a given district are invited to be present, to spend" a week 
or more in convention. The time is employed in discussing the best 
methods of teaching reading, writing, &e., and the various points 
connected with school discipline. What is more to the point, les- 
sons are given in these various branches, and those whose business 
it is to teaeh, receive instruction from eminent and experienced in- 
structors. We noticed in a recent account of one of these Institutes, 
that a distinguished elocutionist and teacher of reading was present, 
and gave a course of lessons. We doubt not that every teacher who 
read with him, or who heard others read, for several days, will read 
the better all his life, and that the reading in the scores of schools 
there represented, has received an impulse for the better for the few 
days spent at that Institute. The same benefit might be looked for 
from the presence of teachers in simple drawing, writing, and arith- 
metic. At these meetings, experienced teachers give the results of 
their various methods, of their many mistakes, and the ways in which 
they were corrected. Here raw and timid teachers are initiated into 
their new business ; older teachers receive valuable suggestions, 
which their experience and their sense of want, enable them at once 
to understand and to apply ; self-conceited teachers are forced to let 
go some of their old notions, and to grow wiser a& they comparer 



13 

themselves with those who know more than themselves. An enthusi- 
asm in their business is excited. They are impressed with right 
views of the dignity and solemnity of their employment. They form 
new and strong attachments, and from these interesting and exciting 
scenes, they go fresh and cheerful to the labors of the season, fur- 
nished with valuable knowledge. These Institutes differ from ordi- 
nary conventions, in that they furnish definite business, and are spent 
in gaining real knowledge. They are not wasted in idle harangues 
and fine speeches. They continue long enough to lay out much real 
work, and to accomplish it. They furnish a model for Town Asso- 
ciations, and the teachers who have felt the advantages of these larger 
meetings, continue their influence, by repeating the same thing on a 
smaller scale. So important have they been found to be by trial, 
that in the year 1845 a friend of education in Massachusetts gave one 
thousand dollars to defray the expenses of a series of these meetings, 
and the legisla,ture of that state, during its session now just expir- 
ing, appropriated two thousand five hundred dollars for the current 
year, to enable the teachers of the state to avail themselves of these 
advantages. 

Let these Institutes be held in Connecticut whh no delay. Let 
them be carried into all parts of the state. Let them be made inter- 
esting by providing able assistants, and by the co-operation of the 
friends of education, each in their own district. Let some provision 
be made by the liberal, that the expense attending them shall not be 
too burdensome. This experiment can be made without any legisla- 
tive countenance. It needs only a willing heart, and a ready hand. 
Let it be made thoroughly in all parts of the state, and let it be sec- 
onded, as it can be, and as it must be, in order to be successful, and 
it will do much to kindle zeal and to create hope for our connnon 
schools. It is simple, voluntary, practicable, and cheap. Let it be 
tried, and it will not be many years before the inquiry Avill be raised, 
whether an education for their business is not required for common 
school teachers, and whether schools for this specific purpose are not 
demanded. This suggests another proposition. 

Third. In order to improve the schools of Connecticut, schools 
are needed for the education of teachers. Normal schools can be 
provided in Connecticut as easily as in other states. If it is not done 
by the state, it can be done by the benevolent. If the expense is not 
defrayed by the legislature, as in Massachusetts and New York, it 
can be defrayed by individuals, as in New Hampshire. In some way 
it will be done, when the public mind is aroused as it must be. Teach- 
ers themselves desire the advantages furnished by such seminaries. 
In addition to Normal schools, there is greatly needed an educational 
establishment in some central situation, well furnished with buildings 
and apparatus, and well enough endowed to furnish the best tuition 
at a low rate ; an institution where the sons of the Connecticut far- 
mers can receive a good education in all the higher branches, as well 
as in the elements of the classics, and in which the sciences which 
pertain to agriculture, should be thoroughly mastered. Such an in- 



14 

stitution woulct be a central light. It woulcl furnish a noble basis for 
accomplished common school teachers. Let us hope that the time 
may not be far distant when we shall be able to speak of our Willis- 
ton and of our seminary, like the one which is honored by his 
name. 

Fourth. The teachers of our schools, to teach better rOHsl be paid 
better. Their business must be made more lucrative and permanent. 
It must be made an object for them to qualify themselves amply for 
their vocation, and to continue in it longer. This can be done only 
as teaching yields a respectable liring. There are not more than ten 
teachers in the state who have a living now, while there are more 
than a hundred school districts, that with a judicious arrangement, 
and their present income, might sustain the same teacher from year 
$o year. But the means of payment can be greatly increased. There 
is not a state in the Union in which teachers can be paid so well as 
in Connecticut, and in which the burden shall be so little felt. No 
state has so magnificent a school fund. Let there be raised in addi- 
tion, less per scholar, than is cheerfully raised in the majority of ag- 
ricultural towns in Massachusetts, and the best teachers in the coun- 
try would flock into Connecticut, as many now rush from it. The 
people of these towns were not impoverished by raising this sum. — 
Nor would it impoverish the people of Connecticut. On the contrary. 
it would enrich them ; for it can be proved that a liberal sum cheer- 
fully raised for a course of years by any community for common ed- 
ucation, will return to that community in money, with more than 
compound interest. 

Fifith. The cities and large villages should at once make use of 
their peculiar facilities for elevating their public schools. Thus will 
they show, in actual results, what can be accomplished, and excite 
other towns with zeal not to be behind them. The plan which we 
propose is extremely simple, and has been tested so often and so long 
as to have passed the best of all tests — that of actual experiment. — • 
The central and more compact portions of the city or village, should 
first be constituted a single school district- Let the younger schol- 
ars — those younger than from eight to ten — be distributed in primary 
school-houses, which should be located at convenient points in the 
district, so that the walk should in no case be fatiguing. They should 
be instructed in all cases by female teachers, in summer ana winter, 
and from year to year. Female teachers are cheaper ; female teach- 
ers are better for this immatin-e age. Their influence is more gentle ; 
it forms the girls to mild dispositions and graceful manners j it infu- 
ses a portion of its own sweetness into the harsh and self-willed pef- 
verseness of early boyhood. Female teachers are more patient than 
those of the other sex. They can teach, with better effect, music, 
drawing, and writing. Last and not least — experience has shown that 
primary schools, such as we speak of, can in their hands, be conduc- 
ted with the most entire success. We would that all the parents 
could be introduced to some of these delightful schools, taught by one 
or more females, " in whose own hearts, Love, Hope, and Patience, had 



15 

first kept school." We have seen the pupils gather around the teacher 
each morning with eagerness and new delight. We have heard from 
their own lips, breaking out in unconscious expressions of love, the 
strong affection which she had inspired. We have heard the clear 
and shrill piping of their cheerful songs. We have measured the 
quiet moral influences that have been thus infused, and have gath- 
ered strength from day to day. 

From these primary schools, after having passed through a pre- 
scribed course of study, and in general, after having attained a fixed 
age, the pupils should go to the central school. If the district is small, 
one school will suffice to be taught by a master through summer and 
winter. If it is large, it may be subdivided into more or fewer gra- 
dations — the lower to be taught by females. In almost all cases, the 
assistants of the masters may be females, and by the aid of two ex- 
perienced and competent females, and with the convenience of reci- 
tation rooms, one master can control from one hundred to one hun- 
dred and fifty pupils. Higher than this, if the population will allow 
it, there may be another school, the High School, or two High 
Schools — one for each of the sexes. To these no pupil should be 
admitted, except on passing a close examination, and this school 
should teach the highest branches that can be contemplated in a sys- 
tem of universal education — the Mathematics, the Natural Scien- 
ces, and perhaps the elements of the Languages. All these schools 
should be under one system, and be free to all. This is no theory. 
There are at this moment in villages of New England, of from one 
thousand five hundred to four thousand inhabitants, public school- 
houses, more tasteful and convenient than any college building in 
Connecticut. In these school-houses an education is given so su- 
perior that no select school can live by their side. To these schools 
scholars crowd from the neighboring towns, and will perform menial 
services in families, in order to gain a residence in the village and 
admission to its public school. This is as it should be. This is re- 
publicanism. But how is it in Connecticut ? Some of the cities 
have made a beginning, it is true, and with good to themselves and a 
healthful influence upon the communities around. But there are 
hundreds of communities, in which this plan might be introduced, 
which are opposed to it altogether. There are some in which it 
has been tried, and abandoned through opposition. We know a 
village in which two thousand dollars were to be raised, all the pre- 
liminaries having been adjusted, and this money was in the main to 
be voted for by the people, and to be paid by a single man, who was 
himself anxious to pay it, and yet the enterprise failed by the cry of 
" a school for the rich!'''' What is the state of many of these villages, 
both manufacturing and agricultural ? Is it not true that select schools 
are sustained by the rich and the reputable, both for older and even 
for very young children ? — that in consequence, the common schools 
have been abandoned more or less, generally, to the poor and the 
neglected, and have degenerated because the rich do not care for 
them ? Is it not true that the degeneracy of the common schools in the 



16 

best and largest towns of Connecticut may be traced to the time when 
select schools were introduced as its beginning, and that this degen- 
eracy has been going forward ever since 1 Is it not true, to confirm 
this matter by argument that cannot be broken, that the best common 
schools now existing are to be found in those towns and districts in 
which select schools are impossible, and all classes of the community 
are interested to make the public school the best school. 

Is it not true moreover, that by this separation of intercourse, of 
sympathy, and of acquaintance, begun in infancy, matured in child- 
hood, and hardened in youth into contempt and scorn, on the one 
side, and into jealousy and malice on the other; there has been 
commenced in Connecticut a permanent and anti-republican division 
of society, on the one side of which, social oppression shall gather 
strength, and in the other shall lurk the incendiary and the murderer ? 

Sixth. The doctrine should be understood and proclaimed in Con- 
necticut, that the property of the whole community may rightfully be 
taxed, for the support of public education. It should be proclaimed, 
because it is the true doctrine. The pecuniary interests of a commu- 
nity like our own, to say nothing of those interests that are higher, 
are deeply concerned in the question whether all shall be educated. 
They are as vitally concerned too, that all shall be well educated. 
The property of the rich, whether they have children or not, may and 
should be taxed, because the security of that property demands that 
this insurance should be effected upon it. The tax which they pay 
is only the premium on this insurance. Besides, it is cheaper as 
well as more grateful, to pay a tax for the support of schools, than it 
is to pay the same for jails and poor-houses. 

In Connecticut this right is denied and disputed. A tax may be 
levied on a district for the construction and repair of school-houses, 
but when a sum is to be raised additional to that which is received 
from the public funds, it is left to those who have children to send to 
the school. The consequences of this system are most mischievous. 
The summer school becomes a select school, instead of being a pub- 
lic school. Or perhaps to make it open to all, for a month or two, the 
allowance from the public treasury is eked out by the greatest possi- 
sible extenuation. The cheapest teacher is hired, and the winter 
school is robbed of the means of subsistence, in order to furnish the 
thinnest possible allowance for its starving sister in the summer. 
"When this " short allowance " is consumed, the children of the labor- 
ing poor, at once the most numerous and the most needy, are retain- 
ed at home, because the parents can or will not pay the capitation tax. 
The children of the rich are sent to the select school of a higher 
order, the one of their own providing ; while the children of the mid- 
dling classes occupy the district school-house, with the select school 
No. 2. Hence, in the summer, troops of children go no where to 
school, except to the school of nature, which to them is the school of 
ignorance and vice, and the schools which are kept up in multitudes 
of cases, are the merest skeletons of schools, both in numbers and in 
character. This bad and unequal system is sustained from two 



17 

causes — the opposition of so many tax-payers to a system of proper* 
ty taxation — and what is more unaccountable, the opposition of those 
who are tax-voters but not tax-payers, who are set against such a sys- 
tem, because it tends to build up schools for the rich I More than one 
instance can be named, in which this doctrine has been industriously 
circulated by some cunning miser among his poorer neighbors, and 
they have gone to the school meeting to vote against all expense, not 
dreaming that their advisers were trembling in their shoes, for fear of 
a petty rate bill. And so they have voted against any change, and 
saved their neighbor all expense, literally, and brought down the tax 
upon their own heads. 

This is unequal, anti-republican, and wrong ; and it ought to be made 
odious. It should be held up in all its unfairness. The right of the 
town or school society to tax its property should be embraced by all 
parties. The party calling itself conservative should proclaim it, be- 
cause it tends so certainly to the security of society. The party 
calling itself popular should hold it, because it sends one of the best 
of blessings to the door of every man. 

To this should be added, the condition attached to the distribution 
of the State fund, that no school society should receive its lawful 
portion, except on the condition, that it should raise by taxation, a 
specified sum for every scholar. This would be a hard doctrine in 
Connecticut, it is true, and that is the very reason why it should be 
insisted on. It is true and most important, and should be boldly 
uttered. The other States, without an exception, that distribute from 
school funds, do it on such a condition. The entire public sentiment 
of the Union, is fixed and unchangeable on this point, and we grieve 
to say that we fear the neglect of Connecticut has been a warning 
against following her example. Shall it be that this munificent 
bequest of our fathers, given to promote the cause of public education, 
shall fail of its design through the neglect or perversion of their sons ? 
or shall it serve this cause, most effectually, as Connecticut shall 
stand forth as a perpetual monument to warn against the like use of 
such funds ? Shall it be that the State which they designed should be 
the model State to the Union, shall serve only as an example to admon- 
ish its sister States, rather than as one to excite and inspire them 1 Are 
we not bound as trustees of this fund, to secure the most complete 
fulfillment of their designs, and, as experience and a change of cir- 
cumstances call for new safeguards, to provide these safeguards ? 
May not the people make the raising of a specified sum on the prop- 
erty of the State, a condition against the improvident waste of this 
bounty ? 

The argument on this subject is very simple, and as it would seem, 
very convincing. In order to improve our Common Schools, jnore 
money must be provided. If it is raised, as it now is by a tax upon 
those who use the schools, then the schools are no longer common 
schools, but for a part of the year, they must be select schools. The 
one must embarrass the other. Those who will have better schools 
will leave the public schools aUogether. Those who depend on the 



18 

common schools, cannot or will not elevate them. But introduce a 
property tax, and you make the schools the property and the pride of 
the whole people. You make it for the interest of the rich to use 
the money which they now expend for the support of higher estab- 
lishments to raise and improve the public schools. Thus the bles- 
sino-3 of this expenditure will be diffused. Its light and warmth will 
not be like that of the fire which cheers one apartment only, but like 
the heat of the blessed sun, which gives no less to the rich, for what 
it oives to the poor. To connect the raising of a small sum per 
scholar, as a condition of receiving the bounty of the State, is the 
simplest and surest way of elevating the schools of the whole State, 
together and alike. 

These are the principles which must be received in Connecticut, 
and believed by its citizens generally, in order to secure a thorough 
improvement in its common schools. It might be shown, that some 
of the most important of them, were suggested by citizens of Connec- 
ticut, long before the present movement for Common Schools com- 
menced in the other States. They are of Connecticut origin. Let 
them be owned as her own and here put in practice, as they can be 
no where beside. 

These principles may be propagated. Let the legislature be me- 
morialized. But let not the legislature be relied upon as the only 
hope. It may not be expedient that the government should move at 
once. It may not be practicable, if it is expedient. Individuals can 
do much without the government. A State association can be formed. 
Measures can be taken to unite the friends of education throughout the 
State. Teachers' Institutes, and Normal Schools can be set on foot 
by individual and associated benevolence, as they have been in a por- 
tion of New Hampshire. Such a movement would not be very ex- 
pensive. The agencies need not be costly, nor the expenditures 
great, but the work is precious, and worth much cost, if it were re- 
quired. 

Nor is the work discouraging. It is discouraging in its beginnings, 
but rapid in its advances. Every district animated with a right spirit, 
diffuses light and wakens interest in ten of its neighborhood. Every 
school-house, well constructed, with its convenient apartments, its 
successful teacher, and its happy scholars, gives an impulse which 
cannot be computed. Parents are animated with hope and desire. 
Children ask why their own school-house cannot be as good. Pre- 
judice is softened. Scepticism is convinced, and public spirit is 
awakened. 

The Connecticut people may be aroused. There are thousands 
and tens of thousands, who are ready to stand upon their feet and to 
put their shoulders to this work. They are not rash, nor headlong it 
is true — they are cautious and stable, but they are the more steadfast 
when thoroughly convinced. They are not profuse and extravagant 
in their expenditures — but they have money, and they are willing to 
give it for objects seen to be important. They are not carried away 
by vague declamation or transcendental moonshine — but they have 



w 

intellects to discern and hearts to feel, in respect to a concern so 
practical and good as that of public education. Let the work be com- 
menced with vigor and with hope. 

In carrying it forward, two classes of citizens can be especially 
useful. On them rests a great and peculiar responsibility. We 
name first, the acting politicians of all parties. They are now un- 
committed as partisans for or against any system. They have an 
equal interest in the improvement of schools. It would be a slander 
which they would resent with indigTiation, to say that they do not 
feel an equal zeal for this most important interest, in which the pros- 
perity and pride of the State are equally concerned. Eminent indi- 
viduals of all political names are known to be zealous for common 
school reform. There are subjects enough beside this, out of which 
political capital can be made. Attempts to do this elsewhere, have 
been signally rebuked. Let parties divided by questions of national 
policy, vie with each other in their zeal and efficiency, in respect to 
this common interest, for which every man's hearth-stone cries out in 
his ears. Let it never be said that the citizens of Connecticut grind 
the bodies and souls of their children between the upper and nether 
millstone of political contests. Heathen barbarism, offered to " Mo- 
loch, horrid king," its children in sacrifice by sending them through 
devouring flames blazing fiercely on either side, 

" Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud 
Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire 
To his grim idol." 

Let not this be enacted on a more fearful scale, in civilized and 
Christian Connecticut. 

On the clergy of Connecticut there rests also a great and solemn 
responsibility. It is a religious duty to care for the untaught, the 
neglected, and the ignorant. It is a duty to give to such, the best in- 
tellectual and moral culture which we can. It is a duty which we 
owe to our nearest neighbor, a duty which is simple, pressing, and 
most easily discharged. So do we best aid and prepare them for in- 
fluences appropriately and directly religious. Let this duty be 
preached, on the Sabbath and from the pulpit. Let it be preached 
till it is believed, and the hearers show their faith by their works. 
We raise money to provide schools for the destitute in our own land. 
We raise it also, to send to Ceylon, and Burmah, and China, that 
schools may be established, which may prepare the youthful mind 
for the influences and the truths of our holy religion. And yet there 
are towns in Connecticut in which there arc scores of children, 
which for Avant of that moral and intellectual culture, that the pub- 
lic schools might give, are, as really, though not in the same degree, 
hopeless subjects of religious truth, as many children of Ceylon and 
Burmah. We have seen children of this character. Besides these, 
there are thousands for whom, a teacher could do far more than a 
clergyman, and on whom the church can act most directly and efii- 
cieutly through the teacher. 



so 

We are well aware that efforts have been made to excite distrust o( 
^ny system of public education, on religious grounds, and to arouse 
against it sectarian prejudice and conscientious convictions. There 
may have been occasion for these feelings in some states of the 
tJnion. Injudicious management, false principles, efforts to propo- 
gate peculiar principles, insidious and open, may have been noticed. 
The school system has therefore been held up as anti-religious. The 
doctrine has been proclaimed that each church must have its separate 
schools, in order to secure an education thoroughly Christian. 

In Connecticut there need be no fear of embarrassment of this 
kind. The people of Connecticut, vpith scarcely an exception, are 
of one mind in the belief of the following truths. They believe in 
the moral duties as enforced by the words and life of Jesus. They 
believe with Washington, that public morality is best secured by reli- 
gious faith and religious feeling. None of them will object to the 
use of simple but fervent prayers and hymns, to the inculcation of the 
duty of imitating Christ, and of trusting in him. In these points they 
can all unite, and they can turn them to use in their public schools* 
What the children need to be taught beside, can be supplied, in the 
family, the Sabbath school-, the pulpit. 

Such is the position of things in Connecticut. We have seen her 
ancient glory ; the present depression with its causes ; the need of 
effort ; the points to which this effort should be directed, and the 
grounds of discouragement and hope. Shall this good work be under- 
taken ? Shall this field be entered ? No state in the Union hag 
means so abundant. No state can, if it will, have schools so 
splendid and so good. Its population is homogeneous, frugal, intelli- 
gent, moral, and religious. It has been accustomed to common 
schools for generations. It has a school system already established 
in the hearts and habits of all, which needs improvement only, and 
not a new beginning. The memory of the past calls us to effort. 
The necessity of the present will not let us alone. The voices of the 
venerable dead, speak to us in solemn tones from that dim and distant 
world to which they have gone, and command us not to be untrue to 
the precious trust which they garnered for us. The cries of the liv- 
ing come up to us, and in tones piteous as an infant's wailing, beseech 
us to spare their childhood from neglect, and their future manhood 
from ignorance and crime. The honor of the State and of the fathers of 
the State calls on its citizens. The sons of Connecticut who have gone 
Out from the paternal mansion, burn with eager desire to be able to 
put to silence the reproaches w^hich they are forced to hear, and to 
know that the spirit which provided the School Fund, still lives to 
make effectual that important trust Those who were personally ac- 
tive in devising and securing this fund, would tell us that no care of 
ours can surpass the thoughtfulness Math which Treadwell studied 
its conception, and no labor of ours can compare with the daily and 
nightly toil with which Hillhouse and Beers secured its invest- 
ments, and watched its securities. The question is, shall Con- 
necticut then be true to herself? We have seen the trim and noble 



21 

ship, manned by a skillful crew, open the passage through an iin- 
known and dangerous strait, and gallantly lead the way for a timid 
and creeping fleet, into a secure and long desired haven. We have 
seen her pass every shoal but the last, but just as she doubles its 
treacherous point, she grounds for an instant, and the cry is from the 
fleet, she will be stranded there ! They make all haste to rush past 
her. In their cry of exultation they forget all her guidance in the 
past. Shall she then be stranded, who has guided so many vessels to 
so noble a port ? Shall her last service be to lie on the quicksands, 
a decaying hulk, deserted and useless, except as a beacon to show 
the shoal on which she struck 1 Shall she be stranded ? No, no ! 
A thousand times, No ! Let the cry then be, Coniiecticut first to lead 
the way, and foremost forever ! 



^ 



NOTE I. 



PLAN AND MEASURES OF A VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION FOR THE 
IMPROVEMENT OF COMMON SCHOOLS. 

The following suggestions indicate more in detail, the views of the author 
of the Essay as to the mode, at once simple and systematic; in which the 
friends of popular education can put forth their efforts for the improvement 
of common schools. 

ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION. 

Article 1. This Association shall be styled the Connecticut (or <Ae name 
of any Toxon or County can be inserted) Institute of Instruction, and shall have 
for its object the improvement of common schools, and other means of popular 
education in this State, {or Town, or County.) 

Article 2. Any person residing in this State, {or Town or County,) may be- 
come a member of the Institute by subscribing this Constitution, and contrib- 
uting any sum, annually, towards defraying its incidental expenses. 

Article 3. The officers of the Institute shall be a President, two or more 
Vice Presidents, a Treasurer, a Recording Secretary, and a Corresponding Sec- 
retary for each county, {or town in case of a county association,) with such 
powers respectively, as their several designations imply; and who shall, together, 
constitute an Executive Committee. 

Article 4. The Executive Committee shall cariy into effect such meas- 
ures as the Institute may direct; and perform such other acts not inconsistent 
with the objects of the as.sociation, as they may deem expedient, and make re- 
port of their doings, annually, and when called on, at any regular meeting of the 
Institute. 

Article 5. A meeting of the Association for the choice of officers shall be 
held, annually, at such time and place as the Executive Committee may desig- 
nate in a notice published in one or more newspapers ; and meetings may be held 
at such other time and place, as the Executive Committee may appoint. 

Article 6. This constitution may be altered at any armual meeting, by a 
majority of the members present, and regulations, not inconsistent with its pro- 
visions may be adopted at any meeting. 



Measures which can be adopted by a voluntary Association to improve Common 

Schools. 

1. Information can be collected and disseminated in every practicable way, in 
every district, town, and county in the State, as to the present condition of com- 
mon schools, and other means of popular education, with plans and suggestions 
by which the excellencies of any one teacher, district, or town, can be improved 
and made general, and any defects be removed. _; ; 

2. Meetings of the Association can be held in different towns for public ad- 
dresses and discussions on topics connected with the condition and improvement 
of Common Schools. 



23 

3. A series of Tracts, each number devoted to some one important topic, re- 
lating to the organization and administration of a school s3-stem, or to the clas- 
sification, instruction and discipline of schools, can be prepared and published 
for gratuitous distribution among teachers, school officers, parents, and every 
body who has a child to educate, a vote to give, or an influence to exert in rela- 
tion to public instruction. 

4. Editors and conductors of the periodical press can be enlisted to publish 
original, and selected articles relating to the subject. 

5. Cler^men can be interested to present the subject in some of its bearings 
at appropriate times to their people. 

6. Local associations of parents and the friends of education, and especially 
district and town associations of mothers and females, generally, for the purpose 
of \asiting schools, and co-operating in various ways with teachers, can be formed 
and assisted. 

7. Pecuniary aid and personal co-operation can be extended for the purpose 
of securing at different points, a school-house, with its appropriate in-door and 
out-door arrangements, a school library, a district school, and a village lyceum, 
which can be held up severally, as a model of its kind. 

8. Good teachers can be assisted in finding districts where their services 
■will be appreciated and rewarded, and district committees in search of good 
teachers, can be directed to such teachers as have proved on trial that they 
possess the requisite qualifications. 

9. The necessary local arrangements can be made, and the ser\'ices of ex- 
perienced teachers secured for the purpose of facilitating the holding, in the 
spring and autumn, a teachers' class or Instiute, where young and inexperienced 
teachers may spend one or two weeks in reviewing the studies which they are to 
teach, in the summer or winter schools; and witness, and to some extent, prac- 
tice, the best methods of classilying, instructing, and governing a school. 

10. The formation of town and county associations of teachers, for mutual 
improvement and the advancement of their profession, by weekly or monthly 
meetings, and by visiting each others' schools, and learning from each others' 
experience, can be encouraged. 

11. Efforts can be put forth to collect a fimd for the establishment, at the 
earliest moment, of a seminary where young men and young women, who have 
the desire and the natural tact and talent, can be thoroughly and practically 
trained for teachers of common schools. 

12. A well qualified teacher, of the right tact and character can be employed 
to perform an itinerating Normal school agency through the schools of a partic 
ular town or county. 

13. School celebrations or gatherings of all the children of a school society, or 
town, with their parents and teachers, for addresses and other appropriate exerci- 
ses, can be held at the close of the winter and summer schools. 

14. Village Lyceums can be established and assisted in getting up courses of 
popular lectures in the winter. 

15. A central depository or office, supplied with plans of school-houses, appa- 
ratus, and furniture ; a circulating library of books and pamphlets on education ; 
specimens of school libraries, and the best textbooks in the various studies per- 
sued in common schools, &:c., can be established. 

16. To give the highest efficiency to any or all of these means and agencies 
of school improvement, an individual should be employed to devote all, or a por- 
tion of his time, as agent under the direction of the Executive Committee of^ the 
Institute, and receive such compensation as can be raised by a special subscrip- 
tion for this purpose. 

Every measure above enumerated has been tried and carried out in other 
states, successfully, by means of volimtary associations, similar^^to the one 
proposed. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 116 634 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 116 634 6 



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Hollinger Corp. 



